


Accursed

by Vminne95



Category: K-pop, 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Domestic Fluff, Family History, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Love Letters, M/M, Past Abuse, Platonic Soulmates, Protective Siblings, Romantic Soulmates, Roommates, Soulmates, domestic abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-29
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2019-10-18 19:04:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17586599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vminne95/pseuds/Vminne95
Summary: Soulmate au where on the night of your 21st birthday you swap places with your soulmate, only problem is Park Jimin finds himself locked inside of a coffin, screaming and frightened.Posting: every Friday





	1. Prologue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys, hope you enjoy the beginning of a new fic and in a similar manner to Marked Wrists, this too will be heavy angst,,, it's all I seem to be able to write ahaha  
> Please leave any comments about how I could improve the chapter or any suggestions/predictions you would like to make. Reading the comments on my work is one of my favourite things ever :))  
> Thank you for choosing to read this, I appreciate it a lot,  
> All the love,  
> Ruzina

The scream pierced through the room as sharply as a freighted bee strings it’s prey. It was the first noise the room had heard in a while, having left the coffin there for the new morning. The fear overrode any rationality that Jimin normally would have boasted of. He kicked and he screamed until his voice hurt. 

It did not take long for Jimin to realise he was enclosed in a tight space, he had woken from his deep slumber, stretched both of his arms out and felt the wood above him of. The blackness shrouded his mind of any clear thoughts. “Am I dead? Is this hell? Where am I?” were the only thoughts that circled in his mind, over and over again like the oxygen that he was recycling in his small wooden box. It took all the effort Jimin could muster to stop thrashing around, and to realise that the coffin shook as he moved. And that was what finally calmed him down enough to breath... and also to come to the conclusion that his breaths were numbered. This is what Jimin did not know of; the average casket is 84x28x23 inches, total volume of 886 litres, the average human body contains 66 litres leaving 820 litres of air, 1/5 of which is oxygen. If Jimin breathed 0.5 litres of oxygen per minute he would have 5.5 hours left in the coffin before the level of carbon dioxide overrode his life. 

But all Jimin could think of was “I need to get out of here, and very quickly at that too.” His only motivation to keep going was the fact that he wasn’t already buried deep under the earth, but lying on a table. “I AM ALIVE, PLEASE GET ME OUT, I AM NOT DEAD” he hoped this simple words would alarm at least someone to come and help. He did not know how much more clearer he could get with what he wanted. 

The security guard, on the other hand had been at his job for a little too long by now to be phased by such screams, his paranoia of the dead had reached a level to which he himself could not comprehend. He heard the dead all the time and even boasted of many ghost sightings. Night shifts at a morgue made you very different to the rest of mankind, so he thought it was just his overactive mind causing mischief again and took no heed of the shouts. 

The tears felt hot on Jimins cheeks, he wanted to stop crying, he knew he had reserve his energy to get out but the damned tears would not stop spilling! He rubbed his cheeks hard and bit his tongue, the sharp pain made his mind a little clearer, so he hit harder on the wooden casket, until the pain was overpowering. Things were finally starting to come into context: he had been asleep due to the soulmate ceremony because 12 hours before your 21st birthday you had to be asleep, every family had their own traditional ways of doing this and Jimin’s was no different. Only fools that no longer wanted to be alive would not go to sleep on the 12:00 mark, things went wrong; very very wrong when you were awake during the midnight change, missing limbs, disjointed body parts and one thing was certain: death. The brain could not comprehend the transition whilst being awake. The sudden change of place within spilt seconds blew your mind: quite literally. It was meant to be Jimin’s birthday, and the most life changing at that; he was 21 and today was the day he found his soulmate... “why am I in a coffin? How did my soulmate get stuck in a coffin? That fool.” 

And then it hit Jimin. The scream that penetrated the room this time was so filled with agony that it made the hairs on everyone that heard it rise on their ends. People walked past the morgue and shivered, pulled their coats little tighter around them. Mothers pulled their children closer to them and lovers pressed into each other just a little bit more. The leaves on the floor seemed to stop swirling in the nights streets and the rain seemed to be stuck mid-way through the sky, not daring to fall. The world froze as Park Jimin realized the truth behind his position in the coffin. 

For the first time Jimin wondered if he ought to try and get out of his wooden cell at all, what would the point be if his soulmate was already dead? How was he meant to go through his whole life knowing he will be alone? “Stop. Stop thinking.” Jimin breathed into the small space that he occupied. His back hurt from lying for so long and his throat hurt from the screaming. ‘I will suffocate and die in a coffin, people usually die before they get in here but-I’ve always been a special child’ he thought with a weak smile. That made him realise just why he had to get out of here: he had a family and his best friend relied on him. “Taehyung-ah” Jimin whispered, he needed him the most right now, both were known for always being able to read each other’s minds. For feeling each other’s emotions like their own and always having a gut feeling when the other was struggling. ‘Taehyung is probably worried sick, he hasn’t heard from me for hours, I wonder how he’ll react to me being stuck here’. 

But there was one thing that jimin was certain of and that was Kim Taehyung would not live a day without Jimin. For love and because that boy relied on Jimin: Taehyung was deteriorating in front of his own eyes and there was nothing he could do but support him with every fibre of his being. The thought that Jimin’s family members would be able to continue their normal life after his death, after a few months of mourning, but Taehyung not living till the very next day without him made his muscles tighten, his breath quickened and Jimin was now determined to to escape. Even if he did not have his soulmate, he’d have one purpose in life: to keep his best friend alive. 

And so the panic stricken boy calmed his voice and repeated “I have switched places with my soulmate, I am not dead” in a audible shout, but not enough to tire him out.  
The guard was nodding off, his head slightly askew and his breathing becoming shallow. No one had ever broken into a morgue, but the job still needed to be done and so here he was, night after night, getting paid to keep guard on the dead. The repeated words he heard he attributed to the state between the living and the dreaming but something made the hair on his neck stick up, it was not so cold where he sat, but for some odd reason he felt himself shiver and withdraw into himself. ‘This will not do’ he thought as he got up from his chair. He was going to do something he had forsaken years ago, tonight he would walk around the building, his dreams were eerie and his thoughts wild with terror. The old guard was not as much scared of the dead as he was of the living: they were the ones capable of causing you pain. The dead had long lost the ability to strike new pains in his heart. There was not much time in the guard finding out the source of the sound and putting together the different pieces of information being said from the coffin in front of him, to Jimin being free. 

Hearts pounding and hands shaking, they both sat on the floor. One from the exhaustion of getting a young boy out of a coffin, alive and all. The other from the lack of oxygen and swirling thoughts in his mind. 

“My boy, you need to get checked up, you’ve been in that box for god knows how many hours, just let me catch my breath and I will drive you to the hospital,” the old guard had never had any children of his own, but the young boy in front of him made his parental instincts flare up like anger in a bulls eye at a red flag. The boy in front of him was motionless, his eyes were watching a distant pool of light at the edge of the room, his breathing was deep, compensating for the lack of oxygen from the last few hours. His clothes were torn at different points of his body; he had thrashed around as much as physically possible in that tight box he’d been imprisoned in. The old man could not even begin to imagine what the lost boy sat next to him was going through. ‘Bless the poor thing, he didn’t even get a chance to meet his soulmate,’ he thought to himself.

Jimin was frozen in his spot, he wanted to run, for however many hours it took for him to reach home because home was where Taehyung was and he had to get to him before the latter did something stupid. But his limbs failed to co-operate. They were still recovering from the lack of oxygen and the pain of being hurled at wood for so long. ‘Taehyung-ah, I’m coming home’ was all Jimin could think, maybe if he repeated it enough times he’d be home quicker? Maybe Taehyung could feel his thoughts, just maybe. 

“I need to go but can I please have a glass of water first?” Jimin half choked on the words, his throat felt like someone had used a nail file all along it. The guard looked at Jimin again, the whole of the him, and shook his head, there was no way he’d let the boy go, not in the state that he was in. “Son, you’re not going anywhere, you won’t be able to take a step with all the bruises on you, your hands are shaking and you look like you’ve seen hell and come back, and honestly if I had gone through your experience I don’t think I would have coped this well.” 

“There is someone waiting for me, I can’t let him down, he’s probably going crazy by now...”Jimin kept going, the sentences getting more and more incoherent as he spoke them, his mind growing more blurry with every image of Taehyung alone in their bedroom. 

“Young man, i don’t know who this person is but they’d not appreciate you not visiting the hospital first, you ought to get an assessment done, see if something’s gone wrong somewhere from all the hours enclosed in that bloody coffin.” 

Jimin didn’t care about himself, not when it came to Taehyung. He was willing to run along wild fires and swim across oceans if it meant he could be assured his Taehyung-ah was okay.

“Can you at least tell me where we are currently?” The guard told him. And that was the last he saw of the boy in the coffin. 

Jimin ran blindly, not particularly out of choice. It was just into the am hours and the streetlights were not enough to lift off the heavy winter darkness that lay across the city. He also did not think a single thought whilst he crossed the city to Taehyung, again he had no choice in this either. Every single ounce of his energy was going into moving his limbs; his feet barely touched the ground. Each & every one of his cells was screaming in pain, in a competition for oxygen, which Jimin was not taking in much of; he just wanted to reach home. 

On a normal run Jimin would have looked softly at the windows of the shops, stared deeply at posters to see what was going on around the city he loved and to appreciate the view, but today everything was a blur, like a smudged out line in charcoal. Out of focus, unimportant. There was the ice cream shop that he and Taehyung both frequently visited, the latter boy having a thing for late night sweet treats. Or the charity shop on the corner where they had gotten their second hand bed frame and table from. The teenage boys at the time had a very tight budget to adhere to. Jimin did not stop to notice the curb he had just passed was the same one he had cursed years ago, promising to never walk on it again. It had tripped his Taetae whilst the boys were practicing skateboarding, a new hobby that lasted only a few weeks. 

The plant next to the door had two pots, but unless you looked very carefully you would have not known that. Jimin, like most normal people, did not sleep with his house keys in hand, and thus he lifted the first plant pot out, heavy with the weight of the soil. Enclosed and wedged between the two plant pots was where they kept the spare house key. Keeping it under the doormat was something everyone did, so the secrecy lost its weight. Jimin and Taehyung both had a habit of locking themselves out, they were both a bit clumsy and miss placed all most all of their belongings one time or another. Sometimes they forgot to put the spare key back into its hiding place which led to more bickering than one can imagine. Sat outside their shared one bedroom house, back pressed into the doorframe they would re-evaluate ways to get in without breaking the doorframe, which with Jimins anger he would have easily done so if Taehyung had not held him down, his hand on the formers stomach, in a way to say “we will figure this out, just keep calm!”  
Until, one day, going against all of Jimin’s morals, they YouTubed how to pick locks. Jimin’s blush was bright enough to look like someone had dipped a red paint brush and drew the blush on for him. Taehyung’s laugh was hallow and loud, not the type Jimin was used to, and both knew exactly why. If the same painter had the chance to paint Taehyungs face, it would be with the darkest shade of black. Taehyung wore bright yellow and an even brighter smile wherever he went, to compensate for the blackness that shrouded his life and enveloped him in its dark cage. Smiling came easy to Taehyung, in the same way a bee is always bound to be found near a plantation of flowers, you could be sure to find a smile lingering near his mouth. It wasn’t necessary fake, it was his way of saying a big fuck you to his life, for getting him to the place he was at currently. He hated everything about his past. There was only one positive that came out of everything that occurred that night; he started a new life with his best friend Park Jimin. If it wasn’t for the latter, Taehyung would have ended it all that same night. 

When Jimin, with shaky hands and heart beating so hard he thought it would surely escape his chest, put the key into the door he felt it slid into place, smoothly, but fear stopped him from pushing the door forward to enter his house, which until now, had been his safe place. Fear lined every inch of him, all the thoughts he had stopped on his run home until now were trying to make themselves heard. He wanted to scream, tell everything to stop, all he wanted was to open the door. His hands felt clammy and his breath sticky. ‘Just push the damn door open’. Every step he took from the front door to the bedroom felt weighted down by lead. It felt like the 13 steps between him and Taehyung were actually 13 universes he was crossing. 

Some part of Jimin already knew what he was going to see, but standing by the door seeing Taehyung fully dressed on his side of the bed, Jimin thought his world had come to a stop.

The moment Jimin had realised his place in the coffin, and what it meant about his future soulmate, he had ruled out any possibility of it being Taehyung. Because Taehyung had promised to grow old with him. Jimin did not see a future without his best friend, and Taehyung never broke his promises, ever. They had sat on park benches, 5am in the morning, with the sun painting it’s vibrant colours onto the sky, promising and dreaming of a future where both were happy. With an abundance of laughter and grandchildren’s milling about by their foot. Of lazy days where they both sat by the fire and remembered their youths, over hot tea and homemade cakes. Their future was always written together, spoken into being. 

In his casket, Jimin had screamed. But now, numbness enveloped him it’s it warm hug, promised to keep him safe, kissed his cheek and whispered that it would keep the pain away. Jimin had one purpose after finding out his soulmate was dead; to keep Taehyung alive and now standing by the door of his bedroom, he realised that even that flicker of hope that been taken out of his grasp. Jimin knew himself to be the person who got up quickly on the bus to let an elderly sit, the one who offered to help a struggling lady with their bags across the road, to smile at little children with messy hair in their prams until they grinned back. He brushed glass to one side of the road when there was an array of it on the street, pushed back thorny branches of trees away from the footpath. He knew he was not perfect, but he was a good person. ‘So why is this happening to me then?’ He thought whilst staring at Taehyung’s pale face across the room from him. Taehyung lie in the suit which Jimin had picked out for him, he had laughed his way through it, never knowing why the suit mattered to his best friend so much. If only he had known. 

Losing your soulmate was one thing, but losing your best friend on the same night was another. And them both being the same person was worst of all. 

Because Taehyung wasn’t sleeping at all; he was dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once again, thank you for choosing to read this, the next chapter gets worse for angst but hope you enjoy it ---->


	2. Love Letters from the Dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jimin's narration in the present will be in normal text, there will be flashbacks (if you want this in a different font let me know).  
> Taehyung's letter will be in italics. 
> 
> Song for this chapter: Someone You Loved by Lewis Capaldi
> 
> 4ft UK Small double. 120cm x 190cm / 4' x 6'3"  
> 4ft6 UK Double. 135cm x 190cm / 4'6 x 6'3" ... the more you XD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello guys, 
> 
> It's been a long time since I wrote anything so I am very very very excited to be writing for you all again. Please leave any comments you like, even if it is just a single word...I love reading them the most. 
> 
> This fic is going to be very angsty, even when it seems like everything is fine again, it will go back to the chaos, so don't say I did not warn you! 
> 
> Hope you enjoy what you read, 
> 
> All the love,  
> Ruzina

Jimin couldn't decide a lot of things, but his first and foremost upon waking up was: should he keep his eyes shut or open them?

The inside of his eyelids had the image of his dead soulmate. Painted in all the right colours, to a perfection he had mastered over their years of friendship and love. But opening his eyes was just as painful; he could see remnants of Taehyung in every inch of the room that they had called their own.

  
Looking up at the ceiling he spots the dinosaurs above, in bright childlike colours, Taehyung had once stayed up an entire night learning origami. And the products were Jimin’s favourite animal. Jimin had laughed; what were they to do with this many mini dinosaurs? Their small home was not somewhere they could accumulate a lot of their possessions into. It already had a lot more than the pair could easily navigate through; what with both being as clumsy as they are. So Jimin had picked up a bundle of string on his way home that evening, and together they had stuck the dinosaurs onto the ceiling. Taehyung holding Jimin up by the hip and Jimin wobbling all the while. They fell over a dozen times, into each other's arms, and laughed until they could not breathe. After what seemed like hours later, the pair lay on the small double bed they owned, and stared at the artwork above. They could not fit a normal double bed into their room and also all that the pair owned, so they had gone for the 4-foot bed, it forced them to be closer at night which neither of them ever complain about.

“To be honest Jimin,” Taehyung had once said, lying diagonally across the bed, “the two of us could fit into a single bed if we wanted.”

Jimin had nodded, his boyfriend was right, the two slept tangled together and barely used up the tiny bed to its full capacity. Taehyung needed to hug something to sleep, and Jimin was the perfect thing for him to hold during his nights, most of which he spent staring at the window because sleep didn’t come easily to the damned.

Jimin tried to push back the tears that clouded his eyes, everything was blurry and the origami pieces seemed to be swaying a little too much; or was his pain just making his imagination run wild? Could Taehyung see him from wherever he was currently? Was he blowing down onto earth to make himself heard?

Jimin’s heart gave a sudden squeeze as he remembered the night they had decided to make a video of the two talking in their different dialects, they were bored and Facebook live was now a thing. The story-line picked was of a conversation where the pair took it in turns to warm up a cold chicken, and at a certain point Taehyung decided the chicken was hotter than need be, and had taken it upon him to blow on the invisible dish. His lips came to make a big pout, his cheeks all puffed up and his eyes nearly invisible as he tried to not laugh through it; he failed miserably at that. And as the pair laughed, Jimin could not stop but think about just how beautiful he found Taehyung’s laugh. He watched the Taehyung on the screen and laughed some more, before deciding to switch to the Busan dialect.

Was Taehyung somewhere in heaven doing the same thing now, but rather than the imaginative cold chicken it was now replaced by the origami that danced it’s lonely dance? Could he still laugh in that way knowing that his best friend lay in bed paralysed with pain at the prospect of a future without him?

  
He looked forward, onto the full length mirror and saw the shape of Taehyung in front of it, scratching his head and, with sleep filled eyes, turning away and heading to the bathroom. And then he blinked and the shape ceased to be.

Jimin grit his teeth, if anyone else was in the room they would think he was feverish, he was shaking that hard.

After that Night that changed the entire of Taehyung’s personality and the lives of the two boys, Jimin had pushed Taehyung along into staying alive, he had given the younger boy his all, ‘for him to only repay me like this?’ Jimin thought.

“Taehyung-ah, please...come...back,” Jimin sobbed into his pillow, he turned his head to where Taehyung’s head ought to have been, with his tousled hair and puffy morning face. Jimin reached out, his hand hovering over the space that ought to be occupied. He withdrew his hand quickly, as if he'd been burnt; he was too scared that if he touched Taehyung’s side of the bed it would lose his smell. Taehyung's scent clung to the sheets, a little bit of his strawberry shampoo, his night cream but mostly a scent that cannot be defined with anything other than that it belonged to Taehyung. So he stared, clutching his hand over his mouth to stop the sobs escaping, and then he curled into a ball and cried for what seems like hours. He fell asleep again, his head banging as if from a hangover, it was his only escape from the horror that he was being forced to live.

A few hours later, still feeling like his entire being was burning alive, Jimin opened his eyes and this time noticed something a little different to the array of dinosaurs above his head. There was a note dangling that he had not seen the first time he had woken up; he got up shakily and tore it down.

‘Look under your pillow.’ It read.

Jimin scrambled, he did not know what he expected to find but for the first time in a long while he saw a small flicker of hope.

It was a letter, two sheets long and folded. Jimin noticed that it was the same paper he used for his university lectures; he did not believe in taking notes on his laptop, he always remembered more when he wrote his lecture notes by hand.

 

* * *

 

_Jimin-ah annyeong,_

_I love you_

A tear replaced the full-stop that otherwise would have indicated the ending of the first line of the letter. Jimin’s own landed in the exact same spot, the pairs tears mixing into the concoction of pain that neither could escape.

_And at this moment you hate me, and I completely understand, you have every right to hate me becuase you are the one having to live with the truth that the boy you love is now buried 3ft down into the ground._

Jimin flinched. Taehyung was scared of small spaces, he hated the lift and he avoided crowded places in case he got stuck between people. Jimin’s entire body went cold at the image of Taehyung lying alone in his coffin, the dark being his only companion.

“Make it stop,” Jimin screamed into the room. “Make this pain go away, I can’t deal with it anymore, I can’t.” The last words were lost in his sobs, the letter was now crumpled, Jimin did not know who he was talking to, was it Taehyung or was it the higher being… was there a difference between the two?

_But please just listen to me. Everything is a mess right, you feel numb or like you are being burnt alive, or maybe both at once. I know I have no reason to ask you to trust me, not after leaving you in the chaos that you are currently in, but you must if you are to know the truth._

_Trust me, I tried everything I could do. I am the dead one-_

“Stop saying that. It’s not real. Just stop saying that,” Jimin gasped, he could barely see the words on the page through his tears.

_-but before I left this world, I went through all the stages of grief; I denied the truth for a while, pretend that nothing had happened and we could continue living the life we had once dreamt of. I was angry, and on most of those days you were there to calm me down, you fixed me to the ground before I had the chance to explode. My Jimin-ah, you are the one with the anger issues, and yet for all the months that I was angry, burning with rage at my fate, you poured water over the burns I had left on myself. I bargained, I really did, I cried at her door-step until nightfall to no avail. I bargained with whatever higher power there was, to change the way things were going to work out, and yet it came to nothing. And then I lie in bed for weeks on end, I gave all my life functions to you, handed you a lifeless corpse to look after because I didn't know how to deal with the truth of what one of my actions had cost both of us. Accepting all that I had done was the hardest part of it all, I don't know what people know about grief but the hardest part is coming to terms with the truth; this took every fibre of my being but I managed to do it; for you._

_I know you will be grieving over me for days, weeks, months and even years or maybe your entire life time, and since I can't be there to help you cope with it, let me just say that the process of grief is not really a process, knowing you the way I do, you will feel anger first before denial, and that is okay. You will think that you are over the denial part but then in the middle of your bargaining, denial will knock on the door and call you in for its attention once again. You will feel like you are on some sort of a road trip without a map, you will cross the same paths more than a hundred times and just when it feels like it is all a bit too much, it will get easier._

_I am so sorry I am not here to hold you as you shake with sobs, or to hold you down when you want to break every wall of the small house we once shared. I am so sorry I won’t be there when you will want to come join me on my side, but whatever you do, you need to live. I want you to live, not just for yourself but for me. I want you to have the best life out there, I am relying on you to experience life to the fullest so when you do join me at age 100, we can talk about it happily._

_There is a lot I have to tell you Jimin-ssi, I know we always prided ourselves in being open and candid with each other but that is not the full truth; I had a dark seed of a secret that grew so large that it suffocated me and led me to being on this side and you on the other; with no way of reaching each other again._

_I know you want to know everything, right this moment, that is just your nature. But now is not the time for you to find out everything that I have withheld from you, but with time you will understand._

_I know all you want to do now is turn over in bed and sleep for another eternity, but I can't let that happen, you have to get on with life, for me. I will be watching you from above Jimin-ah, and I need you to continue._

_There is a series of steps you need to follow before you can get to my next letter, the first is you will get up and shower, in the shower you will find a little note, and it will tell you what you need to know to get to the next letter._

_Go on, the quicker you do this, the better you will feel. You love showers, remember when you once sat across the breakfast table and told me why you took 30 minutes in the shower? You were always so passionate, you had enough passion in you to light up a thousand light bulbs._

Jimin had a tendency to be random, to speak a lot and never shut up, but with the lack of words that Taehyung had left, it suited the two. The younger boy never did get tired of hearing his lover babble on about the most useless topics, so there he sat, with a bowl of cereal in front of him and with the warmest boy sat across. When Jimin got excited he talked fast, like very very fast, and so he leaned forward, so as not to miss a single word.

“Everyone has a simple pleasure in life, some people like to drink a cup of tea before they sleep, or watch a bit of tv after work or go for a jog in the morning.” Jimin was pouring the milk into his bowl, it had taken him a few minutes to open the lid, Taehyung was to blame for this. “That is a small thing that does not cost them anything and yet it makes them feel so much more connected to the world,” he took his first spoonful, “it scolds the world into order, makes everything stop for a while so that they can enjoy those few minutes of having that tea, or watching that show or that morning jog,” Jimin stopped to swallow his current mouthful.

“But do you know what my simple pleasure in life is? It’s showering. I just cant even begin to explain how much I love it,” Jimin paused for effect.

Taehyung laughed a little, he wondered just how long Jimin could go on and on about the simple aspect of feeling fresh after a shower, but he dared not interrupt.

“I feel like I am a different person, Tae stop laughing! I really do mean it, I will stop talking to you for the entire day if you do not listen,” a pout had blossomed on the talkers lips, and he held the spoon in his hand threateningly at Taehyung.

“Fine, fine! Go on, tell me, I am all ears,” the latter bit the inside of his cheeks to stop himself from making any further sounds.

And so, for the next 20 minutes Taehyung heard his passionate speaker go and on about why showers made him feel like a whole new person; and he enjoyed every second of it. At the end of it, as he rose to put his bowl in the sink, he stopped and took Jimin’s face in his right hand and rubbed away at the little dribble of milk that stained his lover’s chin.

_But I know for you right now that is the least of your concern, you just want to know all the answers, but this is the only you will get to the answer._

_I am being mean I know, but what can I do? I am not there physically to help you like you helped me for the past few 4 years, so I have to go with other means. And this is the best I could find._

_Before you go, I want you to know that you are the strongest person I have ever met in my life, you will get through this. Have faith in me for one last time._

_Love,_  
_Your soulmate._


	3. Packed lunches and boxed gifts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little flashback of the happy couple that vmin once were, a meeting with a not-so-much-of-a-stranger and a little more on the night that changed Taehyung. 
> 
> I promise this chapter is less angsty than the last, I tried to sprinkle in some fluff... if you can even call it that XD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some questions i got that i will answer as the story goes on:  
> "were jimin and taehyung living together?"   
> "when/how/why did taehyung die?"  
> "how come jimin was unawre of taehyung's death?" 
> 
> please ask any questions you have yourself so that i can also answer those going forward, and any suggestion, theory or comment is much appreciated, 
> 
> all the love,   
> ruzina

The doorbell rang at ten past one in the afternoon.  
  
Jimin showered and was wearing a pair of matching pyjamas that belonged to Taehyung once. The note on the shower glass panel read, “get dressed pretty, there will be someone at the door near lunchtime” with a smiley face that made Jimin’s inside turn-out. It was Taehyung’s signature smile, with a box for a mouth since he smiled with all his teeth.

He only managed to get through his shower whilst thinking of the last time a similar note had been left on his bed a few years ago.

Jimin had just finished his first-year university exams, he was glad to be getting his summer holidays finally, it felt like his professors had been late to the ball game and had left all their exams to be the last ones. It was like someone had taken off two bricks that had been attached to his shoulders and he could finally relax.

He wanted to walk right into the arms of Taehyung, that was what was on his mind as he stepped into their home. He was already so tired from the exam stress that he felt his eyes sting with tears when he was greeted with silence where he had expected Taehyung’s usual clamouring around the house. Then it hit him how Taehyung would still be at work and return later on in the evening.

Deflated, the boy had walked into the bedroom was about to sink down into the bed when he realised that there was an outfit laid out and a black box with a ribbon on top of it. “Get dressed pretty, I will meet you after work,” read a post-it note attached to it.

“Taehyung! We can’t afford this you punk!” Jimin had shouted into the empty room, it was a Gucci sweater, light enough to be worn on a summer evening but still warm enough for the winter months. Taehyung was a massive fan of the branded company, something Jimin never truly understood, but the pair were not financially stable enough to afford the luxury that it entitled.

He was going to going to scold the hell out of Taehyung for this irresponsible purchase; they still had to pay the rent for this month in a few days, not to mention the 3 monthly water bill that was still lying on the table in the kitchen. But at that moment he just wanted to take in just how much the gesture meant from Taehyung; he was most definitely the luckiest boyfriend alive.

A fancy dinner and too many awful jokes later, the evening had ended up with the pair at the beach, Jimin resting against Taehyung’s side as they took in the sunset that they pair both loved so much. Jimin loved the summer season the most since the sun only begun to sink to its rest around nine at night, giving him a more sense of accomplishment for the daylight hours. Taehyung knew Jimin adored the beach, it was where he felt the most himself and connected with the universe. The younger boy was always ready to indulge in Jimin’s strange likeness for everything that had to do with water.

The water that Jimin was showering under today was much colder than the ocean waves that the pair had giggled over as they ran around seeing who would dip their foot in the deepest. He did not want to get out of the water, he was trying to wash away the pain of what the present held for him as well as the bittersweet memory of what they once had.  
Jimin dressed in the first of the seven pairs of pyjamas that Taehyung had left in their wardrobe for him to wear. It was a cotton pair, a deep shade of purple with a soft collar at the top. Jimin pressed the knuckles of this thumbs into his eyes to get rid of the last image he had of Taehyung in these exact pair of pyjamas only a few days back, in bed sleeping, as Jimin had left for his morning lectures.

He knew he could not just grab whatever the person had to bring and shut the door on his face like he wanted to. The intruder had a letter from Taehyung that he needed. ‘I hate every bit of you Taehyung. I hate you for making me do all this. But most of all, I hate you for leaving me doing this awful treasure hunt to find out what I ought to have known years ago.’

He sighed, brushed the clothes he had shed before going into the shower to one side, and walked across the small living room to the door. He wanted to get this done and over with as soon as possible.

Jimin didn't even bother pretending to be okay and putting on a mask of being strong. Whoever was on the other side of the door knew where Taehyung was and just how much it affected him.

Jimin’s hands shook, out of exhaustion, the simple task of getting up and showering had taken up all his energy for the day. He felt the coldness of the doorknob slice into him as he turned it to the right and opened the door.

The boy was tall, slender, wearing a blue coat that reached to his knees, a woollen scarf was wrapped around his neck. ‘Is it that cold outside? It’s only October,’ thought Jimin. He had a bike that he had rested on the side of the door. Jimin blinked a few times, he fought within himself to focus on the face in front of him.

“Jimin.” Namjoon said matter of factly.

Ah. Taehyung had enlisted the help of one of their mutual friends. A former best friend before Taehyung had decided that he no longer wanted contact with the outside world.

Without a word, Jimin led the now not-more-than-a-stranger into his home.

The younger boy was glad Namjoon’s eyes did not hold the pity that he was expecting in it. He would have crumbled to the floor if that was the case. He motioned for Namjoon to take a seat and sat as far away as possible from him. Jimin was a sucker for physical contact, a pat on the shoulder would be enough to unleash the tsunami of tears that threatened to engulf Jimin as a whole.

“I will not offer you my condolences at this very moment because from the years of friendship we once shared, I know that will result in you smashing my head against the wall and I have 50 minutes to get to work so that will not bode well,” Namjoon started. Jimin was glad Taehyung had chosen this one out of the rest; he was the best with his words.

“I have both of our lunches and I am only to give you the letter from Taehyung after you have finished yours. No bargaining.” The newcomer started to take two small boxes out of his backpack that Jimin could tell was home-made lunches, he felt sick just at the thought of eating.

“He can’t do anything if I don’t eat, so please give me his letter,” he did not add, ‘and leave’ because even though he was grieving, he knew not to be rude to someone who was only trying to help.

“I am not breaking my promise to Taehyung, so you either eat the food in front of you, or I will head out with your letter,” This was not the hyung that Jimin remembered; Namjoon had always looked at Jimin with a crescent moon-smile, his dimples on full display and a warmness to him that made Jimin gravitate towards him in every situation. ‘This is all Taehyung’s doing’ Jimin thought to himself.

“Hyung,” Jimin begun, he saw Namjoon shift in his seat, the harshness to his face grew lighter just with that one word, and there was a peak at his former friend in him. “I feel physically sick at the sight of food, please don't make me do this.”

“I am so sorry Jimin-ssi,” was all that Namjoon managed, there was a plea in his eyes that Jimin found impossible to ignore.

40 minutes later Jimin was alone again, he closed the door and didn't even bother walking to a comfortable seat; he slid down the door and opened the letter from his lost lover as if it was the oxygen he had been missing since the ending of the last letter. Maybe he would never be able to hear Taehyung say anything new, but these were the closest substitute he getting and he could not be more grateful.

_Jimin-ah annyeong,_

He rested his head against the door and inhaled as if preparing himself for a battle that he was destined to lose.

_This is the second letter I am writing and I thought it would be easier than the first but for some odd reason, the tears just never stop? Is it the same for you? Are you crying like I am?_

Jimin nodded.

_You are fast asleep, you complained a lot as I tried to separate myself from you but in the end, the tiredness got the best of you. I can hear you sigh in your sleep and let me tell you; it’s one of the most beautiful sounds this universe has to offer. I am trying not to look over my shoulder at your sleeping form but you are as mesmerising to me when you’re asleep as when awake._

Taehyung’s handwriting was messier than Jimin’s naturally, but this was nearly illegible. Jimin looked through their bedroom door to the desk that was situated against one of the walls, he saw Taehyung’s body hunched over, tears slipping from his face, making it difficult for him to write. He saw his boyfriend turn again and again to watch his own sleeping body. He shook his head and the image vanished, but the truth was it was never there in the first place.

“How did I never know this was happening? Why did you keep it from me Taehyung-ah?” Jimin whispered to thin air, he hoped his love was strong enough for it to carry over to wherever Taehyung currently was. Not his body, but his soul, because that never died, did it?

_I am going to start from the beginning, from the night that undid our entire future like the wrong move in Jenga causing the entire structure to crumble to the ground._

It was close to midnight when the doorbell of the Park house rang, Jimin was awake on the wrong side of youtube, where he was learning how to milk a goat but the problem was he was not really sure he had ever seen one of those in his entire 17 years of living.

His parents were asleep and his brother wouldn’t open the door even if he was offered a million dollars, ‘that lazy bastard’ Jimin thought as he tiptoed downstairs.

A hand went over Jimin’s mouth, he realised later it was his own, to stifle the screams that threatened to awaken not just his family but the entire neighbourhood. The boy in front of him was clad in a black sweater, that looked like it had seen better days, his shirt underneath looked like it was picked up from the floor and his jeans had dark spots that Jimin could not distinguish in the dim light of the streetlamp opposite his house.

But it wasn’t any of this that scared Jimin, it was the look of on Taehyung’s face. It was unearthly, a little like Taehyung was caught in a nightmare even though he was wide awake but it had a hint of something else, something his mind could not put to the vibrant and happy-go-lucky boy that he was well used to. It looked almost sinister, but surely that was not right, this was Kim Taehyung after all.

Kim Taehyung was the social butterfly, the glue to their friendship group and the official event planner. He was the one who unashamedly proposed the next bike ride in the summer, or found the next cafe that had the best board games from their childhood, for their group to try out. He never really walked, he skipped to wherever he needed to go, there was that much happiness in his footsteps. He was the I-will-think-of-a-out-the-box-solution-and-get-us-out-of-this-mess type of friend. The rest of them usually stood in awe as he found ways that no one had ever thought of to win against enemy players. Like the time they went to an escape reality room and he had managed to use the light from the camera to find the letters on the wall. Or the time where they were completing a virtual reality mission, one of the first that was launched in their city, and he had won the game within 20 seconds; the task was to eat 2 slices of cake and whilst the rest of them fought with the dizziness the game offered as they tried to accomplish the task, Taehyung had just thrown the slices in the elevator and eat them with ease later. Jimin had watched in awe, fighting back the butterflies in his stomach, but he blamed it on the queasiness of the game and not on anything more. He was very wrong in that prospect, he would later realise.

But the Taehyung that greeted Jimin that night was the one he would have to get used to for the next four years; the broken one. The one who could not leave his house to see a friend without taking medication first, the one who completely disappeared from the group chat that he had once been the admin of. The one who cried himself to sleep and woke up drenched in tears too.

Jimin sat with Taehyung’s head buried in his neck, his hands digging into Jimin’s sides. He had stopped asking any questions after Taehyung had tried to answer but only choked on his own words, he would wait until morning to find out what had caused this change of events. He just wanted to get Taehyung to stop shaking as much as he was, to put an end to the tears that seemed to flow out of him like that of a broken tap that no one could get close enough to, to fix. He just wanted his old best friend back, but that was wishful thinking. His old best friend died that night, and the shell of a man that he would be left with for the next four years would die on his 21st birthday.

If only the seventeen-year-old Jimin knew that he would only find out fragments of the truth in the following days and that the whole truth would only come to him in the form of letters after Taehyung ceased to be.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed this chapter, and please anticipate a lot for the next! lots of love <3


	4. Immorality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter song: Lost Without You by Freya Ridings
> 
> Timeline warning: this fic will have no chronological flow, it will take place in the present (jimin 21yo) but you’ll get foreshadowing to the future (jimin 30yo etc) or a glimpse of the past (jimin 18yo etc). When we’re in tae’s perspective (usually in the past) I’ll foreshadow to a later time in his life etc... I will try to put as many age tags as is possible but if you find yourself lost please leave a comment and I’ll clarify :)
> 
> Chapter flow:  
> Jimin/Namjoon- present (jimin 21yo)  
> Taehyung- past (tae/jimin 17yo)  
> Jimin/Namjoon- present (jimin 21yo)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys, sorry I haven’t posted in months, university and life got in the way, but I am hoping to post every Friday now (since I have written most of the fic already). 
> 
> Thank you ever so much for reading and as usual, leave a comment with any questions or remarks you have, I love you the most, 
> 
> Ruzina

“He killed his father.” 

 

Jimin was sat with his hands clenching onto the softness of the sofa. His fingers dug into the material so hard Namjoon thought he’d burst the seams and bring out some of the fillings. 

 

“That can’t be right, out of all of us, Taehyung was always the most family-oriented, they were always his first priority . Are you sure?” 

 

Jimin shuffled shakily to the bedroom, he had been getting sudden tremors for the past two days, it was as if his physical body was getting accustomed to the pain and shock that Taehyung's death had bought on. He tried to focus on the minor task of retrieving the letter from underneath his pillow, where he had placed it in the morning after having slept with it in his hands the entire night. Or whatever of the night he had actually managed to sleep through. 

 

He bought the letter to Namjoon, folded it so only that one paragraph would show and held it out for the older boy to read.

 

Namjoon’s heart ached, at how these letters were all that kept the boy in front of him going from day to day, but there was also a pang of pain in there for himself, for something he too had lost.

 

“Taehyung did that…” came a tiny voice from Namjoon, he did not know if it was statement he was making or a question he was asking. It really didn’t matter, because Jimin wouldn’t answer him either way. 

 

It was the second lunch meal that Namjoon had come to visit Jimin, with another packed lunch and yet another letter. 

 

“Did you have dinner?” He asked in between bites of his chicken sandwich. 

 

“My parents came around evening time yesterday, my mum was the person I called when I came home that night from the morgue and found Taehyung on my side of the bed,” Jimin was picking at his sandwich, he was not a fussy eater naturally but his taste buds seemed to have shut down alongside himself and his entire body. 

 

Mrs Park loved Taehyung like a third son, she and her family did everything to keep the boy afloat after he had drifted onto their shores on that night. The couple had, of course, contacted Mrs Kim and found that she was widowed, her soulmate had died that night and that she wanted nothing to do with her son Taehyung. 

 

It had taken the entire family by surprise, Taehyung was the ideal son and they had a picture perfect family, “what could have gone so wrong?” Mr Park had asked his soulmate that night before he drifted off to sleep.

 

Taehyung said little about it, the police even less; there had been a lack of evidence as to what had occurred that night and the Park Family had come to the opinion that Taehyung had gotten into a fight of some sort or the other and his father had died trying to save him. And this is the impression they would have for many more years until Jimin finally got the courage to tell them the reality of what actually happened that night. 

 

But that did not stop Mrs Park from foreseeing some dark future that her son was entangled in. She knew, as mothers do, years earlier that Taehyung would be the downfall to her son and yet she could not put this into words; her son saw the entire universe in the boy he had rescued and kept alive, like a stray wounded cat. So when she got the call that night, she knew it had finally come to pass. 

 

There were no words spoken. Just the empty silence of her oldest son breaking apart as she held the phone to her ear. They were there within minutes, to an unlocked door they had entered fearing the worst; Mrs Park felt guilty for the relief she had felt on seeing her son unharmed physically and still breathing. But she saw even in that moment he was damaged beyond repair and that it would take years for him to heal if he did heal at all. 

 

Jimin knelt by Taeyung’s dead body, no movement or tears escaping. His parents hugged what felt like a carved marble statue of an animated son they once knew. Mr Park kissed Jimin’s right temple and tried to get him to speak but there was no use and soon he yielded and moved away to let his wife hold their son as if he was a child once more. 

 

Later he would put his hands under Jimin’s armpits and drag him to the other side of the room, as if heaving him from the deepest part of the ocean, weighed down with what life had taken out of him rather than the water that may have infused into him; he was not letting a police officer touch his baby. 

 

Jimin would not remember the amount of people that walked into his small, cluttered but pleasant one-bedroom home. He would be shielded by his mother like he was when he was a child and they were in a crowded place, or something unpleasant was transpiring across the street and his mother would stand in front of him to stop him seeing whatever it was. When he was a child his inquisitive mind would have fought to try and get a sneak peek, but the newly turned 21-year-old Jimin would not have moved a limb as his mother clasped him, trying as every mother does, to absorb some of the pain that her son was going through. 

 

He would completely miss the security guard from the morgue who had helped him escape his premature coffin and the doctor who, for the second time in the last 24 hours would come to certify Taehyung’s death; Mr and Mrs Park had no idea that Taehyung’s death certificate had already been printed once before on 12th of October. 

 

Grief made Park Jimin revert back to a toddler, who had forgotten how to function, and so it was a struggle to leave her sleeping baby in bed alone and leave in the morning, Mrs Park felt like she was back in 1998 when Jimin was 3 years old and clung to his mother more than ever before; he was probably conscious of his brother’s arrival soon into the world. 

 

But they had to go and talk to Taehyung’s mother, who were once such close family friends but now had become near to strangers since they had taken Taehyung into their home. Mr Park felt he was not adequate enough to break to a mother that her son had died, not on his own anyway, so they had gone together. Leaving Jimin was no easy task, but she had promised her sleeping son that she would be back soon, but as it happened, they got caught up until the late afternoon when they finally managed to withdraw back to their son. It was hard trying to disengage themselves from the mourning house, they couldn't possibly say they were suffering near as much as the Kim family, and both the couple being soft in nature, had never managed to get out that they were worried for their son; not when another mother's child was gone forever. 

 

Jimin had let his mother fuss over him for a while when they returned, his father sat next to him with their shoulders touching, the trio had had a long day. 

 

“Come home with us,” they had repeated over and over again. “It won't do you any good to be here.”

 

But Jimin could not leave, not when Taehyung had kept himself alive in this house. His notes were stuck everywhere, that Jimin kept on stumbling upon, one in the mirror that told him he looked as beautiful as ever, or the one in his bedside drawer, where he kept his vitamin tablets, ‘your left arm will ache all day if you don't take it!’ it read.

 

And his letters, Namjoon could not travel to his family home to deliver them, and he needed those more than he needed air. Even if the entire house reeked of his lost lover, it was his home and he was not leaving. 

 

“Let me sleep on the sofa, I can manage that,” which bought a sharp stare from both the father and son, with her bad back this was not something they would let her execute. 

 

Jimin reluctantly told them about the letters and how Namjoon had been given the task of making him lunch, about the clothes in his wardrobe for him and the notes around the house. Normally he would have blushed at such a thing, even if his parents were romantics themselves. But now there was no colour to Jimin’s cheek, a paleness had settled in to replace it. 

 

“I will come every evening and make you dinner, i cannot stand you being alone in this house,” his mother announced. This was the last arrangement that they had come to. The Park family had always been close, and it seemed like the gap that Taehyung had created for the past 4 years was being closed now, maybe to bring them even closer than ever before. 

 

The shared look of concern, the unspoken words between his parents, the way they had come up with a plan around their busy lives to accommodate for him was what made Jimin want to crawl into a ball and cry until he had run out of tears. He had once shared all this with his soulmate too, and now there was a vast abyss that no one could ever fill.

 

Jimin sat silently after telling his listener of the night before. Namjoon listened, in broken sentences, as if he truly was a 3-year-old learning to form sentences, as Jimin gave an account of his parents. He was left to fill in a lot of blanks, Jimin just didn't seem to have the strength to delve into anything at any great length. But Namjoon was favourable with his words, be it spoken or written, he could read between the lines more than anyone else. His mind never truly stopped churning, creating theories, twisting words to create new meanings that no one had yet thought of. So he fitted well with the boy in front of him. 

* * *

 

Taehyung tried as best as he could to recall what had happened on the night he had killed his father. He had spent so much of his time trying to bury the memory that now he did not really know what to write to Jimin. He wondered how much of the gruesome details he could say and at what point his soulmates idea of him would change forever. The fear that Jimin would fall out of love with him after hearing what he had done froze his hands on the paper, stiff like the hinges of a door that has not been opened for a few hundred years. 

 

Jimin was in the living room, curled up on the sofa, with a blanket on top that Taehyung had draped over him, marathoning his shows. He had a few days off from university and was taking all the advantage of the free time to catch up on things he had missed. 

 

Taehyung could hear the subtle gasps and the occasional burst of laughter from where he sat, he had told Jimin he was journalling, that it helped ease his mind and take away some of the stresses of his days. It was not a full lie, he would occasionally journal a line or two; to make himself feel better for the white lie that he was feeding Jimin. He was going to do worse things, so he tried not to feel too guilty about it. 

 

He wrote as much as he could about their dingey hallway, the cracked floorboards and the dripping ceiling. The table on the side that holds all the glass bottles of his father's drinks, all emptied to the last drop. He had come to his family home from his second part-time job, it was nearing midnight and he was bone tired. He had spent the entire evening and most of the night on his feet, as a waitress in a shabby hotel that was a 40-minute bus ride away from home. Most of the time he fell asleep on the journey and had the bus driver shout his name from the front, the man knew Taehyung as the boy who had that big square smile, and a gleam to his eyes that meant he was trouble, but in the best sense. 

 

It was starting to get a bit too much; being the happy-go-lucky friend who was always upbeat and smiling outside, but as soon as he stepped into his house, he felt his shoulders drop and his lips turned into a flat line, his eyes seeping in the darkness of the house.

 

 His mother worked as a cleaner at the school, it was a meagre pay with all the school holidays they had and it was hard to manage with one parents income. So Taehyung served as a waiter on the busier evenings and assisted at a food factory that he went to in the early morning hours before school. He did not want to take a weekend job, which his father always taunted him about, because it was his only time where he could be with his friends and pretend that his family’s financial situation did not depend on his shoulders. 

 

He saw his father striking his sister, jabs thrown in his drunken state, some hitting her face and others the fridge behind her. She was shrieking for him to stop but he had her by the wrist and she could not fight her way out of his grasp. His mother had been trying to stop the blows on her daughter's face but had been thrown onto the floor where she sat now, wailing into her hands. 

 

Taehyung could not remember when he had determined to grab one of the glass bottles, but he felt himself striding across the hallway to his father, he pushed the man on his right shoulder and swung the bottle over his head, breaking it into two. He could only remember his sisters screams, his mother grabbing him from the back and shoving him as far away as she could manage. He was shocked at the sight of his own hands, blood-smeared and warm. 

 

He covered his face with his painted hands of red and cried. A shrill sound, like that of two knives being sharpened.

 

Only later, in nightmares which Jimin would hold him through, sweaty and mottled, would he realise that he had stabbed his father, again and again with the broken glass in his hands.

* * *

 

 

Jimin focused on the sandwich in his hand, he wanted to ask Namjoon if it was wrong that he did not feel any less love for Taehyung than he had done before finding out that he was a murderer. However, he could not form the words out loud because even he knew it was immoral how he felt, and it would possibly drive the older hyung away from him, which he could not let happen. As selfish as it sounded, he needed his letters and Namjoon had them. 

 

Namjoon shifted in his seat. “But his father's death does not explain why he died just a few hours before your soulmate ceremony.”

 

Jimin shuddered, if something as big as this was revealed in his second letter, then what was in store for him in the later ones? 

 

 

 


	5. Without you the ocean will be a desert

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 1: present, jimin 21 year old  
> Part 2: flashback, jimin/taehyung 18  
> Part 3: present, jimin 21 year old
> 
> Song: Make it right by Bts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys, thank you reading this work of mine, I am working really hard to try and create something meaningful and worth you time. 
> 
> Please leave a comment, even if it is just one word, or a question or anything, it makes me really happy to read them <3
> 
> All the love,  
> Ruzina

"He just left me. Completely and utterly. I have no idea what I did wrong. But how could he do that hyung?" Jimin shouted, he looked like he was a firework just before it explodes into the sky, angry and shimmering. "Make him come back. Just bring him back, that's all I want." 

 

Namjoon stepped forward, he tried to get closer to the smaller boy but there seemed to be a wall in-between them, a barrier that Namjoon thought was too high for him to climb over. 

 

"Jimin, let me help-" 

 

"No. You can't help me." Jimin screamed into the room. "Can you bring Taehyung back? Can you bring him back to life?" 

 

"Of course I can't do that, Jimin listen to yourself," Namjoon begun.

 

"You have no idea what I am going through," Jimin watched Namjoon flinch. But he was seething in anger, anger at himself for being so in love, at Taehyung for not being alive and generally at the entire universe for the pain that was ablaze in each of his cells. 

 

"It gets better, it does, believe me," Namjoon did not know where to begin or where to end. How do you tell a 21-year old that they will have to get used to being without their soulmate for the rest of their life? It sounded unreasonable even as he said it. Even after all he knew.

 

"I gave him my everything, from the moment he came to my doorstep on that night till the day before my ceremony, all I did was give him everything I held in me. I let go of everything that mattered to me, I barely saw my family when we moved out, he hated spending nights alone. I never met with any of my friends for fear he would be left alone for too long. I felt like I had to give every second to him that I could spare. And look where the selfish bastard left me. Empty-handed and with no-one to call my own." Jimin gasped for air. He rubbed away at the tears with the back of his hand. 

 

"Of course I want him for my selfish reasons. It's as if I am left without air every moment he is not here, but you know what makes me even angrier? Knowing I and you and everyone else will get to experience life after 20, to have a career and a lovely home, to settle down and have children, grow old enough to have grandkids but look at what he got; nothing. He didn't even live to 21. Even if we had separate soulmates, I just wished my best friend got to experience life just like everyone else," Jimin sobbed. 

 

He moved to the wall and lifted his fist. Namjoon tried to hold him back but he was too strong for his grip. Namjoon was pushed backwards, he tried to regain his balance and go to Jimin but he was too late. By the time he had reached Jimin again, his hands were streaked with blood and the wall had a dent in the shape of it.

 

"Go away," Jimin screamed as his hyung tried to hold his hand, to at least try and soothe the physical pain that he felt. "Just get out." Jimin was pushing Namjoon now, away from himself, away from everything he felt. 

 

Jimin was a year younger than Namjoon but when the pair were together it felt like the age gap was of a decade or more. The older boy was always so much wiser, knew exactly what to say, but for once Namjoon didn't know what to do, he did not know how to lessen the pain that the boy in front of him felt. 

 

So, with lead in his heart, he walked to the door, it took his everything to leave Jimin alone in this state but ‘maybe he will calm down if I am not here,' he thought as he reached for the door handle. 

 

And then he heard running and Jimin was in his arms, his legs wrapped around the older one's waist. His face buried in Namjoon's neck. Namjoon's right hand rested at the back of Jimin's head, and the other was keeping the smaller boys in place. Everything became a blur for the next few moments as Namjoon tried to regain control of his thoughts.

 

"I want him back," Jimin whispered into Namjoon's neck. 

 

* * *

 

Jimin had butterflies from the moment he had woken up that morning. And now standing in the middle of their living room he surveyed what was to become his kingdom for however how it took for them to move out to a bigger house. Jimin could not move into his university dorms like most first-year students did, because Taehyung was not going to university. Jimin had tried to reason with him, but had failed to come up with a suitable answer to all his arguments. He had to come to terms with the fact that a university degree was not everyone's cup of tea.

 

"Your life can still be just as wonderful if you don't go to uni, Jimin-ah, and who says I can't enrol next year?" But before the start of the next academic year, Taehyung will come to realise that he has no future, and he would have this same argument again with Jimin. But at 18, they did not know that. 

 

The smallness of the house suited him because with only the two of them he did not think he would be able to cope with a larger one. Not to mention that Taehyung was the only one working full time, had started his job as soon as his college exams had finished, and they had realised that they would need a place of their own. For the first time in Taehyung life, work did not feel like a burden or something his father ought to be doing instead of him, as he had done in his early teenage years. Because this time it was for him and Jimin. 

 

As they placed yet another box on the floor from Mr Park's car, Jimin's fingers brushed that of Taehyung's underneath it, he grew hot. Felt the heat on his cheeks and prayed that the boy in front would not look into his face and see the way this small touch had impacted him. 

 

The two boys had always been easy with skinship, holding hands came as easily as breathing and Taehyung struggled to fall asleep without holding Jimin in his arms, his long limbs encircling the smaller boy. And yet, these days Jimin felt a different sense within him, a slow burn along his insides when the two touched, he was scared the flame would grow too much and that he would do something stupid. Something that Taehyung was not yet ready for.

 

He could not help but wonder if the boy walking out of the front door now also felt the same. He hated the idea that he was the only one experiencing all this and wished that Taehyng would blurt out what was encircling his mind. He dared not say a word, afraid he was rushing things. Taehyung was fragile, as fragile as a thin sheet of glass that had already experienced the harshness of the world around it. And Jimin found himself always calculating the way he said or did things, just so as not to throw him off. Unless he was angry, then Park Jimin could not control his mouth and Taehyung would learn that in the next few months as Jimin's patience wore thin.

 

Maybe Jimin was overdoing it, but Jimin had this weird inclination where he wanted to take their first steps into the house together. He knew he was being silly, they were only tenants here. That when the two bought their own house together he would be able to do all of these crazy things… and yet he felt his hand reach out to grab Taehyung's arm as they were about to enter the house for the night, Jimin already having said goodbye to his parents. 

 

The former looked up, a quizzical expression on his face. He raised an eyebrow. 

 

As Jimin moved to reach where Taehyung stood, he felt a shy small cross his face, he could not meet the confused boy's gaze. But Taehyung knew his best friend well, and felt himself intertwined his hands with the smaller boys and together they stepped into the house. 

 

Jimin would look back on that day, and thank the heavens that he had stopped Taehyung because unlike his oblivious 18-year-old, he knew now that he would never have the chance to move into a house of his own with his soulmate. 

 

That night as they got into bed, that still did not have a headboard, Jimin felt himself bite his tongue as Taehyung pulled him closer to his side. They had the same duvet as the one from Jimin's old bedroom, but the bed mattress underneath was unfamiliar and they both felt it. He was glad to be facing the window, where the streetlights glowed softly in the early autumn night. Every bit of his body that touched his best friends felt hotter than the rest of his body. He felt agitated, like all of his nerve endings were on fire. And without thinking, he pushed himself deeper into the curve of Taehyung's body that had become his new home. 

 

He felt Taehyung's lips brush on his neck and wanted to scream, he waited for him to do something more. Anything more. He gulped, and let go of his breath after a while because Taehyung wasn't going to do anything. And he knew it was not in his hands to make the first move; what if Taehyung was not ready for anything more? He thought endlessly.

 

He felt the younger boy's grip tighten at his waist. "Welcome to our new home, Jimin-ah." 

 

"You too Taehyung," Jimin whispered, his voice faltering. 

* * *

 

 

Jimin lay with his head in his mother's lap, staring at the ceiling, it felt like his entire body was in physical pain, aching from head to toe.  

 

"Mama, please help me, you've always known how to make me feel better; when I had a fever you knew exactly how to bring it down, when I had a bee sting you calmed the searing pain, so do something now. I can't live like this," Jimin's words merged. One word bumping into the next. 

 

His mother ran her hand through her older child's head. She wanted to accept all of his pain for herself, and yet it was her baby that was going to have to live through it. She knew Jimin and Taehyung had planned for a future with each other, they were always stuck at the hips even from the start of their friendship. Whenever Jimin had friends over, which was all the time during his high school years, you could always guarantee to see the two sat next to each other, one usually leaning into the other. When Jimin's friends stayed overnight and she happened to pass his bedroom door, she'd see the two tangled with each other, be it on the bed or the floor, depending on who got the lucky dip for that night. They were inseparable for years on end. 

 

For the 7 months that Taehyung stayed with the Park family, they saw less and less of anyone else. Taehyung became a part of the family, his preferred foods got added to the list just under Jimin's. But unlike the cheerful, boxy smiled boy that Mrs Park was used to, she saw a broken version of it, he smiled just as much, but there was no glow in it any longer. The normally loud laughter was dimmed down to the lowest setting. From years earlier, he had grown accustomed to the Park family, came and went whenever he felt like it. Helped himself to everything and anything; sat with Mrs Park in the garden as she sipped her tea and chatted away with Mr Park as he cooked dinner… and yet once he moved in, they rarely saw him besides dinner time. That was the one meal that the entire family had to have together no matter what went on outside of the house, and this included Taehyung. Mrs Park wondered how this altered boy impacted the friendship that her son had with him, and yet they seemed to grow closer than ever, so she didn't intervene. Not that the 17-year-old Jimin would have let his mother intervene anyways. 

 

"You know there are three things that are certain in our universe: by the age of 21 you will have a soulmate, a curse will take its course and death is mandatory on every living being. You've known this since you've had sense so now you have to live through it my baby, there is nothing me or your dad or anyone can do to make any of these things disappear." 

 

Mrs Park had come to visit her grieving son in the morning on this day, she and her husband ran a small family business, it was a card company with a few franchise open throughout the country that they had to frequent every quarterly and that time was already here. Jimin had to force his mother to go, he knew his dad would forget half the things and also not look after himself over the week-long trip. 

 

Later that afternoon, Namjoon bought Jimin his seventh letter. Some of these were filled with memories of the two lovers, others that made Jimin cry until he ached to his core. The pain was still anchoring Jimin to the ground and he wondered how long it would take till he grew used to it, or if it would follow him to his own grave. 

 

As Namjoon was putting on his coat, ready to say goodbye, Jimin hesitated with his request. The older boy had been giving his lunch hours for Jimin, he did not know how to ask for more of his time. 

 

He fiddled with a thread that was coming off of the t-shirt he was wearing. Unaware of what to ask or how to make it seem impersonal.

 

The thing was that Jimin's mother always left after he had fallen asleep, sometimes she sat on the floor and sang to him, or at other times she sat reading on the small bean bag near the window whilst Jimin battled with his insomnia. But he had never had to fall asleep in an empty house before and he knew that if today no one was with him, he'd not sleep the entire night. 

 

"Hyung?" 

 

"Hmm," Namjoon was putting his hands through his coat, focusing on that action alone, he was not the one to do things in haste. 

 

"Are you busy tonight?" 

 

"It's a Friday night Jimin, the only thing I have planned for tonight is a bath and an early bedtime," Namjoon smiled, dimples all on display like art pieces in a museum. 

 

"Well, so, um I was thinking if only Hobi hyung doesn't mind-" 

 

"What I do is up to me, what has Hoseok got to do with how I spend my time?" The older boy said abruptly, throwing his backpack over his shoulders and turning to leave. 

 

"I'm sorry I didn't mean anything like that, it was just that I was wondering," Jimin pulled the thread out entirely out of his t-shirt and looped it around his fingers. 

 

The older boy had already crossed halfway through the room and was nearing the door. He had 10 minutes to get back to the office, he would need to hurry up if he was to clock back in on time. 

 

He grabbed for the door handle as Jimin said, "if you could stay the night." It was blurted out all in one go, a request from a hopeful, ready to be denied, because why would someone have to give up their lunch and their bed for someone who had not properly spoken to him until just a week ago? 

 

Namjoon's hand stopped on the cold metal doorknob, he turned around, "you want me to what?" Namjoon regretted his choice of words, he did not mean them to sound as harsh as they had. 

 

"I'm sorry, of course not, I just, it's nothing, have a good shift!" Jimin looked down at the floor, dropped the thread from around his fingers, foolish and wishing the ground would engulf him, how had he been as stupid as to ask Namjoon that? 

 

"You want me to stay the night?"

 

"I can't sleep alone, it's too scary without Taehyung." 

 

"I will come back in the evening," Namjoon said simply, he opened the door and walked into the October afternoon. A fresh breeze whipping at his face, he realised he had left his grey woollen scarf on Jimin's sofa, but he didn't go back to get it, he would return a few hours later anyway. 

 

At a quarter to midnight, he found himself on the same sofa where his scarf had been left, with two thin blankets over him and his feet dangling off the edge. He was comfortable enough, just found it hard to sleep being in a new environment. 

 

Jimin lay in his small double bed and saw Namjoon's feet dangling off his sofa, he admired the older boys height a lot but for once it seemed to be at a disadvantage. 

 

He tossed and turned in bed, unable to quieten his mind. He listened to an audiobook on self-growth, thought it would be boring enough to send him off to dreamland and 1 hour in, he was still as awake as ever. He played soft music of rain pouring down rocks in some European country somewhere, to no avail. From his bed, he could only see the back of the sofa, and yet he could not stop staring at it and the dangling feet of the occupier. 

 

Finally, he twisted himself out of bed, dragged his duvet with him, and slowly tiptoed around to where Namjoon lay. He tried not to make any noise but did end up knocking over some papers off the coffee table as he went across. He put the duvet on Namjoon first, aware that if he took the two smaller blankets, his body would be left to the cold air of the living room. And then slowly, he removed the smaller blankets from underneath after he saw that Namjoon had not woken up yet. He went and tucked the duvet under the sleeping boy's feet, and pushed the adjacent sofa so that there was no gap in between; it now held Namjoon's feet rather than it being suspended from air like it had been for the past few hours. 

 

Jimin looked down at the sleeping boy, his right hand under his cheek, and breathing softly and smiled at his work. 

 

When he reached his bed, he found himself drifting off to sleep without many more minutes passing by. 

 

The only thing was; Namjoon was not asleep at all. He had quickly closed his eyes as he heard the rustling from Jimin's bed and waited anxiously for whatever the smaller boy was going to do. He had not expected this of all things. 

 

It made him sleep with a lighter heart; he had caught a small sight of the boy he had once known before Taehyung's death. Of the softer, kinder and more heartwarming Jimin. The Jimin that was selfless and put everyone else before himself, the one that spent his free time helping his friends rather than doing his own work, who listened to his loved one and yet never shared his problems. Namjoon was glad to see that that part of him had not died alongside Taehyung. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I can’t wait to update again next Friday <333


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